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Frack is a harsh, ugly word, with unpleasant connotations. If public arguments were won or lost on single words, the fracking industry would be on a hiding to nothing. Fracked, as it were.

But the issue of whether or not to exploit Scotland’s reserves of underground shale gas is much more important than a word. It is hard not to feel sympathy with the industry’s public relations executives as they struggle to avoid the term, talking about hydraulic fracturing instead.

The long and tortured arguments over fracking in Scotland are now coming to a head. The Scottish Government has published six expert reports, launched a four-month public consultation, and is promising to take “a final decision by the end of 2017”.

The companies that want to drill for onshore gas and their political backers, the Conservative Party, are embroiled in a fight to the finish with their opponents: environmentalists, local communities, Scottish Greens and the Labour Party. The outcome, with the SNP as judge and jury, is difficult to predict.

The technology they are talking about is a method of drilling between one and three kilometres under the ground to extract tiny pockets of shale gas trapped in rock. Water, sand and chemicals would be pumped down wells and injected under pressure to fracture the rock and release the gas.

In 1992, when the first submarine armed with Trident nuclear missiles arrived on the Clyde near Glasgow, John Ainslie was in a canoe. Along with a flotilla of other protesters, he was buzzing the huge dark boat as it cut through the cold water. He had just been appointed as the coordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (SCND), and he was arrested by the Ministry of Defence police.

John, who has died of cancer aged 62, was the quiet, unassuming heart of the peace movement in Scotland for the last 25 years. As well as putting himself on the line, he became an authoritative and internationally respected nuclear researcher. He was the author of 20 reports on aspects of nuclear policy, starting in 1992 with Cracking Under Pressure, about defects in nuclear submarine reactors.

His most recent report, in July, written with Dan Plesch from the University of London, argued that successive UK governments had deceived the public by pretending that Trident was a British bomb when it is actually American. Other reports exposed Trident’s safety flaws, its targeting strategies, and its secret workings. In 2008, he discovered problems with a mysterious top-secret warhead ingredient known as fogbank.

He backed Scottish independence as a way of triggering UK nuclear disarmament. In the run-up to the referendum in 2014 he showed how Trident warheads could be removed from the Clyde within two years – and how they could not safely be based anywhere else in the UK.

John played a crucial role in breaking the story of the Trident submariner, William McNeilly, who went on the run in 2015 after alleging 30 safety and security flaws. John was a skilled user of freedom of information law, and helped to prise open the MoD’s secretive nuclear citadel and expose its inadequacies.

The SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Greens, socialists, trade unionists, journalists and fellow campaigners were among the many who hailed him as a quiet and unassuming legend of the peace movement.

Ainslie, who joined SCND as a full-time worker in 1992, has been a hugely influential figure in nuclear policy. His numerous expert reports and his detailed grasp of nuclear technology won him respect and admiration from peers around the world, and he was often quoted in the Sunday Herald and elsewhere.

He was also an active campaigner. He buzzed the first Trident submarine to arrive in the Clyde in a canoe, drove around Glasgow in the early hours of the morning following nuclear bomb convoys and addressed countless meetings and protests.

“My thoughts are with John's family and Scottish CND,” tweeted Sturgeon. “John was such a committed campaigner against nuclear weapons.”

The Scottish Government is promising that it will abide by European Union (EU) environmental law protecting wildlife and preventing pollution despite Brexit.

The cabinet secretary for the environment, Roseanna Cunningham, is pledging not to weaken a raft of Brussels legal measures regarded as crucial for conserving plants and animals and keeping air, water and land clean and healthy.

Her promise comes on the eve of a summit with environmental groups near Perth this week. It is Holyrood’s first clear commitment on green legislation since the UK voted last month to exit from the European Union, and has calmed campaigners’ worst fears.

Conservationists had voiced concerns that Brexit could lead to the weakening of vital laws governing nature areas and the management of fisheries. In the past the Scottish Government has come under fire for breaching European directives on wildlife, air pollution and dirty beaches.

But now Cunningham is seeking to reassure environmentalists. “It’s not always easy for the Scottish Government to comply with EU environmental regulation,” her spokesman told the Sunday Herald.

The Cairngorm ski resort near Aviemore has come under fierce fire for breaching planning permission during construction work high on the much-prized mountain.

The Cairngorm National Park Authority (CNPA) has reprimanded the ski company for creating an access track and re-engineering a slope without consent. The works were part of a scheme to replace the Shieling ski tow in Coire Cas.

The company, Natural Retreats, was ordered to apply for retrospective planning permission for the two unauthorised developments. It submitted an application last week.

The high tops of the Cairngorm mountains are one the most protected environments in Scotland. The high altitude, near-arctic conditions are home to some of the country’s rarest plants and animals.

There has long been controversy over ski developments on Cairngorm, most notably the funicular railway. The latest “destruction” caused by the replacement ski tow angered walkers and conservationists, who complained to the authorities.

Plans to dig out large amounts of Scotland’s precious peat from a landowner’s estate near Edinburgh look set to go ahead despite widespread opposition from conservationists and government.

A loophole in the law is likely to allow peat to be extracted from Auchencorth Moss on the Penicuik Estate in breach of local and national planning policy. Peat is a vital store of carbon, and is meant to be protected to help prevent climate pollution.

But because the application by a horticultural company is seeking to renew a 30-year-old old minerals permission, it can’t be rejected. If new conditions are imposed, compensation may also be payable.

The situation has been condemned as “shockingly outdated and inconsistent” by environmentalists. They are calling on ministers to take urgent action to close the loophole.

The 3,000-hectare Penicuik Estate has been owned and run by the Clerk family since 1654. The family is currently headed by Sir Robert Clerk, the 11th Baronet of Penicuik Estate.